Page 50 of The Comeback

I call him right before I’m supposed to report to the hotel before our game.

“Hey, what’s up, Combs?” he answers.

“Oh, you know. Nothing much. Pretty boring over here,” I deadpan. “How about you?”

Brock laughs. “Man, I’ve never seen this much drama outside a Real Housewives episode.”

I drag a hand down my face and chuckle. “I just want to play football and win a championship. Is that really so much to ask?”

“Your mishaps last week aside—” he says, pausing for dramatic effect. I groan. “—The championship is a given. Of course you’re getting one.”

I sigh. “You make it sound so easy. Wish it was.”

“Tell me about the girl.”

I give a short laugh at him digging down to the issue so quickly.

When I don’t respond right away, he goes on. “She’s the one from college, right?”

“She’s the one.” And so I do. I tell him about her leaving, about what she said to me after the game last week, and all my complicated thoughts. How much I still love her. How much I’m scared to trust her with my heart again.

“You’ve always taken on life like you can do it all,” he says.

I scoff, but heat rushes into my cheeks because I am stubborn like that.

“You walked off the field last week like you were the reason you guys almost lost to the Blues,” Brock continues.

“If the shoe fits,” I protest.

Brock lists off a dozen plays from my various teammates that went wrong in the game, from big stuff like dropped passes that would have been first downs to little things like my left tackle missing a block and cutting my passing time down to just a couple seconds in one play. (I don’t miss the critique in his voice when he recounts that play and the tone in his voice that insinuates he’d do better.) Brock has always had a brain for the little things, like the way he notices little tics in the defensive linemen that help him keep the quarterback’s pocket open for a few more seconds to pass, or how to shove one just the right way to open up a hole for a runner.

“It all adds up, Jett,” he finishes. “Every action and reaction and it’s never down to one thing. You and Ava both screwed up. More than just that day she left or what happened in the weeks after. Own it and decide what you want. Move on without her—” My heart drops at the words. I think he’s the only person I know who can see that as an actual possibility. “—or move on with her.”

We turn the conversation after that, talking about Brock’s frustrations on the Denver Devils and Colby’s wedding. Brock can’t make it since Denver has a game against New York that weekend. Pretty soon we have to hang up, both of us to report to our respective coaches at the hotels.

His words stay with me the rest of the day, as much as I try to shed it all to prepare for my game tomorrow. The way he talked about how everything in the game adds up has me not just thinking about the stuff he mentioned, ways the whole team messed up, but even about the actions that gave us the win. Like the way Colby tackled that defensive player and saved the game, doing something I couldn’t in that moment. Maybe that’s what Ava saw herself doing, and it’s taken me until now to understand that.

That night, Colby and I study game plans and film quietly in his room. We’ve been at it for hours when I have to speak up. “I’m sorry about everything with Ava,” I say.

He looks up from the tablet where he’s been watching film of the Arizona Cobras pass defense. He furrows his brows. “Huh?”

“You kept asking me not to make drama, and I just kept stepping right into it. I wasn’t ignoring you. I promise.” I rub at my temple.

He leans back against the couch in his hotel room and gazes at me. “I know. You and Ava are like magnets, and Gab didn’t help things.”

I give a dry laugh. “You two should have coordinated strategies better.”

He shakes his head, giving me a wide-eyed look that has me grinning. “I thought when she told me to make sure you didn’t do anything to run Ava off that we were coordinating our strategies.” He pulls off the blue-light blocking glasses he’s wearing, ones I’ve teased him about before for being his old-man reading glasses, and tilts his head at me. “I shouldn’t have tried to dictate your friendship with her or think I could manage any bumps there were going to be after your history. I should’ve told you my concerns and then trusted you.”

I lift my playbook back into my lap. “Sounds like we’ve both got some learning to do about relationships.”

Colby puts his glasses back on, shaking his head as he looks back down at his tablet. “Amen, Little Bruh.”

When I walk out onto the field the next afternoon with Colby, I see Ava and Gabriella standing in the front row, and I almost trip over my feet. I figured after last week’s argument that Ava would never let Gabriella talk her into coming. And seats this close. It’s not an accident.

“How’d you get Gabriella those tickets?” I ask Colby.

He eyes me. “I didn’t. Ava called in a bunch of favors. I guess she knows some high rollers through her job.”

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